6HUM1012 Popular Protest, Riot, and Reform

Dr Katrina NavickasLecture 1: types of collective action

and protest

definitions

• Popular protest• Popular politics• Collective action• ‘Contentious gatherings’• Movement• Social movement• riot• Reform• Radical• Trade union – organised labour

Types of collective action and protestTypes of action Types of campaign

Basic timeline• 1763-1774 – John Wilkes’ campaign for ‘liberty’• 1776-1784 – American revolutionary war – association movement for reform• 1789 – start of French Revolution• 1790s – French war - radical and corresponding societies – working-class;

influenced by Thomas Paine• 1798 – Irish Rebellion and 1801 Union• 1802-1815 – Napoleonic Wars• 1811-12 – Luddite machine breaking• 1816-20 – ‘mass platform’ radicalism• August 1819 – Peterloo Massacre, Manchester• 1830-32 – political unions and the 1832 Reform Act• 1830-33 – Swing riots• 1834 – Tolpuddle martyrs• 1834-39 – anti- New Poor Law campaign• 1837-1848 – Chartism• 1838-1846 – Anti-Corn Law League

Parliamentary reform movements

John Wilkes and the Wilkesites 1763-1774

Christopher Wyvill and the Association movement, 1780-1785

The ‘mass platform’ radical movement of 1816-1820

Chartism, 1837-1848

Corresponding societies of the 1790s

Political unions and the reform campaign, 1830-32

Warning:

• Avoid a Whiggish teleology – there was no inevitable march to democracy.

legislation• 1715 Riot Act• 1792 – royal proclamation against seditious writings• 1794 – treason trials• 1794 suspension of Habeas Corpus• Nov 1795 ‘Two Acts’ (‘Gagging Acts’)• 1799 and 1800 Combination Acts• 1817 suspension of Habeas Corpus • Nov-Dec 1819 ‘Six Acts’• 1830 – 19 Swing rioters hanged and hundreds transported• 1839 – third royal proclamation against seditious meetings. 500 Chartists

arrested, 250 imprisoned and 6 death sentences commuted to life transportation.

• 1842 – 200 transportations of ‘plug rioters’ and Chartists

Single issue campaigns

Anti-Corn Law League, 1838-46Anti-Slave trade to 1807, anti-slavery to 1833

Anti-New Poor Law, 1834-39

Religious collective action

Gordon Riots, June 1780

Church and King riots, 1791-2

Catholic committee and United Irishmen in the 1790sDaniel O’Connell’s repeal movement in the 1820s and 30s

Industrial collective action

Luddism, 1811-12‘Plug Plots’, 1842

Strikes and trade unions

Agricultural collective action

Swing riots, 1830-33

Tolpuddle Martyrs, 1834

Other forms of collective action

• Food riots• Enclosure riots• Anti-impressment riots

• Owenite socialism

Charles Tilly, Popular Contention in Great Britain 1758-1834 (1995), pp. 44-6

Eighteenth century contentious gatherings

Parochial – issues often confined to one community

Violent direct action enacted locally but redress from national

bodies sought through intermediary authorities

Particular – forms of action vary between localities and do

not spread easily

Nineteenth century collective action

National – issues affect many communities, or affected

power centres that controlled many localities

‘modular ‘ – forms of action easily transferable methods

between localities

‘autonomous’ – address centres of power directly